Pop Culture

Love it or hate it a lot of people are watching it and that makes it a great place to start for some reader’s advisory. Outsiders, science, and fandom ahoy. Just some ideas to jump start your lists, displays, and more!

Finding Yourself for the Nerds, Geeks, and Gifted

The Summer I Became a Nerd by Leah Rae Miller

Winger by Andrew Smith

Into the Wild Nerd Yonder by Julie Halpern

Sleeping Freshman Never Lie by David Lubar

The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl by Barry Lyga

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

Science(ish)

Feynman by Jim Ottaviani

Extreme Physics by Simon Basher

A Black Hole is Not a Hole by Carolyn Cinami Decristofano

or for older readers

Death by Black Hole by Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Geek Dad: Awesomely Geeky Projects and Activities for Dads and Kids to Share by Ken Denmerd

Switched at Birth is and ABC Family drama about two teenage girls who discover they were switched as babies. Bay Kennish was raised by the wealthy family of a former professional athlete, while Daphne Vasquez lived with a struggling single mother. Despite an illness that left Daphne deaf at a young age she enjoys sports and cooking, while Bay’s art talents include both street art and more traditional forms.

Books that will appeal to fans of Switched at Birth might include books with deaf or hard of hearing characters, books with teens adjusting to new or unexpected family situations, stories of false or mistaken identity, and non-fiction related to Bay and Daphne’s interests.

With DVD box sets and streaming services more and more people, especially young people, are binge watching. Binge watching is exactly what it sounds like: watching a lot of episodes of a show at the same time. Binge watchers will often watch an entire season of a show back to back.

So, how do we harness this energy for books? By reading an entire series start to finish! You can use this idea for a book display, book list, lock-in, or even for book discussion if you have some hard core readers. Here are ten finished* series to get you started.

Gallagher Girls by Ally Carter

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Delirium by Lauren Oliver

The Wolves of Mercy Falls by Maggie Stiefvater

Curse Workers by Holly Black

Chaos Walking by Patrick Ness

Hourglass by Myra McEntire

Summer Series by Jenny Han

Stupid Fast by Geoff Herbach

Jessica Darling by Megan McCafferty

More binge reading? Try Lauren Kate’s Fallen, Condie’s Matched, Dashner’s Maze Runner, Carrie Ryan’s The Forest of Hands and Teeth, Artemis Fowl, or if you have a few months Naylor’s Alice series. There are a ton of great options for any kind of binge reader.

*We all know that “finished” is a little questionable these days with e-novellas, companion books, and authors writing follow-ups ten years later, but we’ll go with it for now.

Today the second book in the Land of Stories series, The Enchantress Returns, will be released. I’m pretty biased when it comes to the author so instead of a review I bring you program ideas. This would be a great tween program as the audience for the book extends past it’s middle grade-ness.

Versions of Fairy Tales

Alex and Connor’s teacher talks about how the original versions of stories have been lost to modernization and Hollywood versions. Why not check your collection for various versions of the same story and have the kids compare and contrast? Do a little research and share the oldest version you can find as well. Sur La Lune Fairy Tales will get you started.

Writing Activity:Fairy Tales from a Different Point of View

“What the world fails to realize is that a villain is just a victim whose story hasn’t been told.”

Challenge students to write a version of a fairy tale from the point of view of the villain. You could share The True Story of the Three Little Pigs to get them thinking. How would the witch in Hansel and Gretel explain her actions? What about the tailor in the Emperor’s New Clothes?

Fairy Tale Improv

For a more active game get silly with favorite stories. Pick a couple of well known stories and several ways to perform them like fast forward, slow motion, super sad, cowboy style etc. Make a spinner with each of the styles and have participants spin the wheel and volunteer to act out the story in that particular style.

Make a Map

Provide large sheets of paper and let kids create a map of their own imaginary world just like Chris Colfer did as a child. Here is the author’s childhood map of The Land of Stories and the professionally illustrated version from the actual book.

Fairy Tale or Literary Wanted Posters

In The Land of Stories Goldilocks is a wanted criminal. Have students create a wanted poster for her or another literary criminal. This could easily extend beyond fairy tales to other literary bad guys like Count Olaf or Bellatrix Lestrange.

Last week YALSA announced the list of Teens’ Top Ten nominations for this year. That got me thinking about how these kind of lists are really helpful to librarians. If you are not familiar with it Teens’ Top Ten is a really neat program that lets groups of teens around the country get books before they are released and vote on their favorites. The nominations are then put up for an online vote with winners announced for Teen Read Week. It’s a great example of youth participation and you can learn more about it here http://www.ala.org/yalsa/teenstopten.

No teen librarian worth their duct tape is going to stop reading professional reviews and ordering a diverse collection because they see what avid outspoken (and largely white and female) readers put on the list.

The value of the list to us is something a little different. Teens’ Top Ten is basically telling us what authors/books/series have a fandom, and that’s another another way for us to connect with teen readers. If John Green and Cassandra Clare’s fans can connect online to vote in an poll don’t you think at least a few of them in your community can be connected via the library?

Okay, so what now?

Lurk Online

At the very least spend a little time online learning the basics so you can talk to teens about the titles. What do fans call themselves? What are the big ships? What are the big events for fans like cover reveals, new releases, movie announcements?

Reach Out With Social Media

Follow the authors and some of the bigger fan sites if they exist. Retweet or Reblog things of interest to fans with your library media accounts as appropriate. Post your events in the right places and you might even reach fans who aren’t already library users.

Programs

Talk about having a built in audience for a program. Here are just a few ideas:

General fan meet-up

Trivia Contest

Fanart Contest

Fanfiction Writing Group

Cosplay Event

Theme Party/Release Party

Movie Marathon

Book Discussion

Tshirt or Button Making

Fandom specific crafts (Try Pinterest!)

Fandom related Summer Reading Prizes

Watch fanmixes, parodies, and other related YouTube videos

Readers Advisory

These popular series can serve as benchmarks for reader’s advisory since they are so widely read. That means even if you don’t have time to read all of them, or your copies are never available, you should still familiarize yourself with the appeal factors. Lists and displays of similar titles are a great way to promote lesser known titles in your collection.

Why stop there? Once you are familiar with the book or series you can do character based reading lists as well. What would Hazel read? How about Prince Kai? What kind of books would Tris like?